Mass Effect Trilogy Officially Dated, On-Disc DLC Detailed

November 1, 2012
Written by Jason Dunning

Just this past weekend, we let you know that Amazon had listed the PS3 version of the Mass Effect Trilogy for December 4th, and now, Ryan Warden of BioWare Edmonton has taken to the BioWare Blog to confirm this.

He didn’t just stop with the December 4th (December 7th in Europe) release date though, he also detailed the on-disc DLC you can expect to see integrated into the game:

Ryan also continued to explain the challenges surrounding the PlayStation 3 ports of each title, with a huge focus on the original Mass Effect, which will release via the PSN on December 4th as well:

Fortunately, we had a huge head start because of the work we had done with Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 for PS3. With that said, the original Mass Effect game was built completely differently than its successors, as we’ve learned a lot of lessons since then about how-to and how-not-to build a game. To be completely honest, I thought that it was unlikely that we could port Mass Effect in less than a year. It might take three years. Maybe even twenty-three! Fortunately, the team at Edge of Reality, an external team we’ve worked with in the past on many projects, thought otherwise. So we decided to try.

There were some complications. The audio technology that we originally used was no longer supported by its developer… and the engine didn’t support the PS3. “No problem,” said Edge of Reality, and they found a solution. The levels and art assets in Mass Effect were massive and streaming into memory would probably have to work differently on the PS3 – which is NOT a trivial issue. “Shouldn’t be a problem’” said Edge of Reality, and they found a solution.

Then there was performance. At the outset, we didn’t know what we’d find with Mass Effect, and wouldn’t know until we were hip deep in development. We needed to see the game in motion to make fixes, and fixing performance issues isn’t easy. It’s a little like realizing you’ve lost your car keys and then trying to answer, “When are you going to find your keys?”

We found a solution, but the solution took a lot of time and effort. It wasn’t easy, but early this summer, we had the game running and feature complete – something that made eyes bug out of heads around the office. We were near the end of the project, and had tucked in for the big push. There were definitely more than a few late nights. During (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend, I ended up working 65 hours! But these types of deadlines and pushes are always made easier when you are working with awesome people. We all banded together. Our internal team cranked into high gear and Edge of Reality really turned on Beast Mode and started crushing bugs. We worked around the clock to ensure the game performed at, or better-than, the performance metrics that we had from the Xbox 360. And they did it. Mass Effect on the PS3 runs pretty damn well.

Will you be picking up the Mass Effect Trilogy or just the original Mass Effect? Let us know in the comments below.